Here are 100 books that Your Illustrated Guide To Becoming One With The Universe fans have personally recommended if you like Your Illustrated Guide To Becoming One With The Universe. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout

Misha Maynerick Blaise Author Of This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe

From my list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe! 

Misha's book list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life

Misha Maynerick Blaise Why Misha loves this book

I was blown away by this book; each page is a composition of ethereal cyanotype images, photos, X-rays, newspaper clippings, history, and science. Curie's discoveries had great benefits as well as terrible consequences for humanity.

This book made me think about the paradoxes of life and how we reckon with the powerful forces unleashed by science and technology in our rapidly changing world. 

By Lauren Redniss ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Radioactive as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A National Book Award finalist, the mesmerizing, landmark illustrated biography Radioactive is finally available in a stunning paperback edition. Through words and her own gorgeously crafted illustrations, artist and journalist Lauren Redniss tells the story of Marie Curie, nee Marya Sklodowska, and her working and romantic relationship with Pierre Curie, including their discovery of two new scientific elements with startling properties-as well as the tragic car accident that killed Pierre, Marie's two Nobel Prizes, and her scandalous affair with a married scientist. And Radioactive looks beyond the contours of Marie's life, surveying the changes wrought by the Curies' discoveries-nuclear weapons,…


If you love Your Illustrated Guide To Becoming One With The Universe...

Book cover of The Rosewood Penny

The Rosewood Penny by J.S. Fields,

2023 Queer Indie Award Nominee!

The dragons of Yuro have been hunted to extinction.

On a small, isolated island, in a reclusive forest, lives bandit leader Marani and her brother Jacks. With their outlaw band they rob from the rich to feed themselves, raiding carriages and dodging the occasional vindictive…

Book cover of The Principles of Uncertainty

Misha Maynerick Blaise Author Of This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe

From my list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe! 

Misha's book list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life

Misha Maynerick Blaise Why Misha loves this book

I feel so happy when I look through this creative meditation on finding beauty in the mundane of life. Kalman uses art and words to wind her way through charming, hilarious, and heartbreaking vignettes. She muses on the mysteries of the world and our endless search for meaning, while her whimsical images bring levity to the human condition.

By Maira Kalman ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Principles of Uncertainty as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Sublime . . . Kalman’s elegantly witty and at times melancholy narrative runs arm in arm with her unmistakable paintings on a serendipitous romp through the history of the world.” —Vanity Fair
 
“Wildly original . . . there’s nothing else even remotely like it . . . This hilarious, wise, and deeply moving volume [is] the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” —O Magazine
 
Maira Kalman paints her highly personal worldview in this inimitable combination of image and text

An irresistible invitation to experience life through a beloved artist's psyche, The Principles of Uncertainty is a compilation of Maira Kalman's New…


Book cover of Capacity

Misha Maynerick Blaise Author Of This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe

From my list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe! 

Misha's book list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life

Misha Maynerick Blaise Why Misha loves this book

There is nothing remotely like this comic series; it's one of the most original, surreal, and fantastical things I have ever read! When I spend time with this artist's work, I feel like a portal opens in my mind and enters a space of pure, unbridled imagination.

This book puts me in touch with the mysteries of human consciousness and the potential of endless dimensions and dream worlds enveloped within otherwise normal daily life.

By Theo Ellsworth ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Capacity as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 12, 13, 14, and 15.

What is this book about?

Part autobiogrpahy, part mythology and totally beautiful, Theo Ellsworth's much beloved perennial classic, Capacity, returns in a special edition!

Capacity tells the fantastically true and truly fantastic personal history of the artist as a young man. Theo Ellsworth's astonishing drawings, which Pitchfork describes as "a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle," give shape to thoughts profound and silly, bringing familiar doubts and hopes to visionary, new life. Just try to remember, this all really happened. Counted among the best books of its original publication year by the Chicago…


If you love Yumi Sakugawa...

Book cover of Tangle of Time

Tangle of Time by Maureen Thorpe,

A spellbinding journey through time and cultures.

When Annie Thornton, midwife and apprentice witch, falls through time to a 15th-century Yorkshire village with her telepathic cat, Rosamund, she befriends Will and Jack, two soldiers returning from the French Wars. Mistress Meg, Annie’s ancestral aunt living in the 15th century, is…

Book cover of If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow

Misha Maynerick Blaise Author Of This Phenomenal Life: The Amazing Ways We Are Connected with Our Universe

From my list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm very interested in neuroscience, and it turns out that when you are in a state of wonder, you activate parts of the brain that correlate with creativity, gratitude, hope, and connection with oneself and others. In a way, wonder is an antidote to the doom-and-gloom ideologies that surround us. I'm very drawn to art and ideas that help me connect with my sense of wonder and remind me that I'm connected with a vast and mysterious universe! 

Misha's book list on connection with the mysterious wonders of life

Misha Maynerick Blaise Why Misha loves this book

Brief, poetic, and filled with gorgeous art, I first encountered this unforgettable book as a child. I now see it as a philosophical meditation on approaching life's difficulties. It urges a creative shift in perspective to seek a more transcendent approach to life's problems, something the world needs more of right now!     

By Cooper Edens ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked If You're Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Presents advice for a variety of situations, including what to do if the sky falls, the bus doesn't come, the sun never shines again, and there is no happy ending.


Book cover of The Life Divine

Duff McDonald Author Of Tickled: A Commonsense Guide to the Present Moment

From my list on to help you find your true self.

Why am I passionate about this?

That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? Out here in the manifestation, I am Duff McDonald, author and journalist, father of Marguerite, husband of Joey, and general man about town. I’m a Canadian who moved to the U.S. to go to college and never went back. But who am I, really? I am the same thing as everyone else, a speck of consciousness in the possibility machine, a perfect creation. This whole thing has divine origins, something I only realized not that long ago, and it set me free. I can’t wait to see what happens next. I have, of late, discovered that maximizing one’s awareness is the main quest of a human life.

Duff's book list on to help you find your true self

Duff McDonald Why Duff loves this book

Sri Aurobindo is, in my opinion, the greatest writer of them all. His poetic prose hypnotizes while swirling around the most profound ideas of all — What is the divine? How can we know the truth? What is the best way to live? The Life Divine is Aurobindo’s magnum opus, his articulation of the path to self-realization and how to use it to make the world a better place. In other words, it’s everything you need to know.

By Sri Aurobindo ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Life Divine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The Life Divine explores for the Modern mind the great streams of Indian metaphysical thought, reconciling the truths behind each and from this synthesis extends in terms of consciousness the concept of evolution. The unfolding of Earth's and man's spiritual destiny is illuminated, pointing the way to a Divine Life on Earth. Index.


Book cover of There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job

Alison B. Hart Author Of The Work Wife

From my list on women’s ambition and battle for our souls at work.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ll tell you a secret. I’m obsessed with money—not fast cars, designer labels, and McMansions, but the accumulation of capital: who has it, how they got it, and what lengths they’re willing to go to to keep it. So I’ve always loved novels about work. They cut right to the heart of a character’s true motivations, revealing what they’ll fight for and who they’ll love. Don’t show me what a person looks like, show me how they earn (or don’t earn) their living, and I’ll remember them forever.

Alison's book list on women’s ambition and battle for our souls at work

Alison B. Hart Why Alison loves this book

When I picked up Tsumura’s first novel to be translated into English, I’d just given notice at my hectic corporate job. So when the burned-out narrator tells her employment agency she’s looking for an easy job that’s “ideally, something along the lines of sitting all day in a chair,” I could relate.

She searches for that elusive work-life balance at a series of strange positions, but when she lands a plum gig working in a small hut in a forest, the story’s disparate strands weave together into an emotionally satisfying whole.

By Kikuko Tsumura ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked There's No Such Thing as an Easy Job as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"[A] 21st-century response to Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener.'"―NPR

"A revelation."―Time

A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking.

Her first gig--watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods--turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job--writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets…


If you love Your Illustrated Guide To Becoming One With The Universe...

Book cover of Chasing Light

Chasing Light by Traci Medford-Rosow,

Chasing Light is a lyrical meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile beauty of everyday life. At its core, it is a story of resilience, forgiveness, and the transformational power of human connection. It sheds light on the overlooked realities of homelessness and addiction, while emphasizing the importance of compassion…

Book cover of The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics

Ben Orlin Author Of Math Games with Bad Drawings: 75 1/4 Simple, Challenging, Go-Anywhere Games--And Why They Matter

From my list on math books with genuinely good drawings.

Why am I passionate about this?

Explaining math demands great visuals. I should know: I explain math for a living, and I cannot draw. Like, at all. The LA Times art director once compared my cartoons to the work of children and institutionalized patients. (He printed them anyway.) In the nerdier corners of the internet, I’m known as the “Math with Bad Drawings” guy, and as a purveyor of artless art, I’ve developed an eye for the good stuff: striking visuals that bring mathematical concepts to life. Here are five books that blow my stick figures out of the water. (But please buy my book anyway, if for no deeper reason than pity.)

Ben's book list on math books with genuinely good drawings

Ben Orlin Why Ben loves this book

Picking up this short picture book, I expected a dose of Phantom Toolbooth-esque wordplay. Not at all. This five-minute love story, about a line yearning for a dot, somehow enlarges into a meditation on geometric structure itself. From such a brief book, I didn’t expect new insights about how simple geometry underlies our most intricate thinking—but then again, that’s what delightful visuals will do for you.

By Norton Juster ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Dot and the Line as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

Once upon a time there was a sensible straight line who was hopelessly in love with a beautiful dot. But the dot, though perfect in every way, only had eyes for a wild and unkempt squiggle. All of the line's romantic dreams were in vain, until he discovered...angles! Now, with newfound self-expression, he can be anything he wants to be--a square, a triangle, a parallelogram....And that's just the beginning!First published in 1963 and made into an Academy Award-winning animated short film, here is a supremely witty love story with a twist that reveals profound truths about relationships--both human and mathematical--sure…


Book cover of The Voices We Carry: Finding Your One True Voice in a World of Clamor and Noise

Geanne Meta Author Of Parenting Well After Childhood Abuse: Be a Great Parent Even if Yours Were Crap

From my list on self-help I wish I’d read sooner.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve been on a quest of healing my childhood trauma for decades. Now I’m living with gratitude and a zest for life. Let my research help you on your own unique journey. Since you’re reading this, it may be the exact time for you to move forward on your self-actualization trip! Here’s a tip: You don’t need “improvement.” You’re already good – you just need help to find it inside and believe it. Here are 5 books that helped me accept myself, made me think differently about others, and opened new possibilities for happiness and peace. 

Geanne's book list on self-help I wish I’d read sooner

Geanne Meta Why Geanne loves this book

I love the way the author uses honest stories to impart valuable life lessons. He humbly shares what a jerk he had been and how he learned to be more tolerant and loving in relationships.

As a hospital chaplain he hears intimate life stories and often, dying wishes. This is where such profound wisdom comes from, I believe. God is mentioned a few times but there is no judgment or preaching from this guy.

I highlighted so much in this book I almost ran out of ink! I will be going back whenever I need inspiration.

By J. S. Park ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Voices We Carry as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Reclaim Your Headspace and Find Your One True Voice

As a hospital chaplain, J.S. Park encountered hundreds of patients at the edge of life and death, listening as they urgently shared their stories, confessions, and final words. J.S. began to identify patterns in his patients’ lives—patterns he also saw in his own life. He began to see that the events and traumas we experience throughout life become deafening voices that remain within us, even when the events are far in the past. He was surprised to find that in hearing the voices of his patients, he began to identify his…


Book cover of Black Girl Magic Sprinkles

Cynthia Sanders Author Of Mia, the Monster of Fear and the Fairy of Courage

From my list on Black education, dreams, and self-love.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been passionate about Black authors and Black children being writers and writing about their experiences or their children’s experiences since I was a young adult. Ever since the Trayvon Martin incident years ago, these Black history stories and books have been so meaningful to the Black community. I used to read just Urban fiction AA books back in high school, but ever since I became a writer/author I have taken a liking to reading children's books about self-love, fear, and going to college, especially for young black children. I read these books to remind me that we are strong-minded people. That no one can take our light from us.

Cynthia's book list on Black education, dreams, and self-love

Cynthia Sanders Why Cynthia loves this book

This book is about using some magic sprinkles one day and falling asleep, but waking up in your dreams as a doctor, lawyer, dentist, or even a firefighter is showing young Black kids that they can be all those things and to not let the color of their skin or how they chose to wear their hair stop them from achieving those goals and dreams.

By Chaunetta Anderson , Trinity Anderson , Nana Melkadze (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Black Girl Magic Sprinkles as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 3, 4, 5, and 6.

What is this book about?

Black Girl Magic Sprinkles is a story about a young girl named Trinity, who dreams of one day being a teacher. However, she is discouraged because she does not often see women who look like her in successful jobs. She stumbles upon a jar of Black Girl Magic Sprinkles, and is shown endless opportunities. It takes this encounter for her to realize that Black Girl Magic lives within her and she can be anything she wants to be."Even if you haven't seen it, doesn't mean you can't achieve it; because with just a sprinkle of your Black Girl Magic, you…


If you love Yumi Sakugawa...

Book cover of Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman by Alexis Krasilovsky,

Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.

A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…

Book cover of Queenie

Nichola K. Johnson Author Of Sounds of Diamonds

From my list on real-life stories about struggles in life.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a quiet and very shy child, I found myself sitting alone reading books rather than playing with other kids. My love for reading at the time was restricted to children’s books like The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe or Roald Dhal stories until I upgraded to Enid Blyton Books and Mills & Boon romances as a teen. It wasn’t until I reached my twenties when I actually found the genre I loved. It was through my love of these stories I came to realise I didn’t have to hide anymore, and my love for these stories planted a small seed in my mind that I would have the courage to write my own.

Nichola's book list on real-life stories about struggles in life

Nichola K. Johnson Why Nichola loves this book

Carty-Williams tells a very clever and witty story of Queenie’s struggles navigating life as a young black woman in South East London, right where I grew up. I can relate to her work life, friendships, and love life so much it’s unreal. Whilst reading this book I could really feel myself within the plot as I’ve walked on some of the streets she talks about, been to places she talks about and of course, we all have a past and a story about our childhoods that make us who we are today, especially when they have been challenging. 

By Candice Carty-Williams ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Queenie as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

ONE OF TIME’S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

NAMED ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2019 BY WOMAN’S DAY, NEWSDAY, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BUSTLE, AND BOOK RIOT!

“[B]rilliant, timely, funny, heartbreaking.” —Jojo Moyes, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Me Before You

For fans ofLusterandI May Destroy You,a disarmingly honest,unapologetically black, and undeniably witty debut novel that will speak to those who have gone looking for love and found something very different in its place.

Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting…


Book cover of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout
Book cover of The Principles of Uncertainty
Book cover of Capacity

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